Seven Springs Estate and Trump Tower among properties New York could seize in fraud case

Long before Donald Trump stepped into the White House, his glitzy and glamorous real estate empire helped make him a nationally recognised star.

Now, a judge's ruling that he defrauded the state of New York, the centre of that empire, has put the fate of some of his flagship properties into doubt.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has begun preparing to seize his assets in case he does not pay a penalty of nearly half a billion dollars.

Mr Trump is appealing the ruling.

But he must submit the full $464m penalty in cash or secure a bond from a private company by 25 March if he wants to continue the appeal without the state seizing his assets.

Last year, Forbes estimated that Mr Trump's New York properties alone are worth $720m (£589m), a sizable chunk of the former president's estimated $2.5bn fortune.

Let's take a look at some of the properties that Mr Trump might lose.

Located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the 58-floor Trump Tower is among the most recognisable properties bearing Mr Trump's name. The building is the headquarters of the embattled Trump Organization and has been home to Mr Trump and several of his family members.

The building - which was developed by Mr Trump and inaugurated in 1983 - has also featured prominently in popular culture, including serving as the location for Batman's Wayne Enterprises in Christopher Nolan's 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises.

Mr Trump's penthouse condominium that spans the top three floors of the building is also among the properties that he was found in the New York lawsuit to have overvalued.

The penthouse was valued at $327m in 2015, a price that the lawsuit called "absurd".

"Tripling the size of the apartment for purposes of the valuation was intentional and deliberate fraud," the lawsuit reads. "Not an honest mistake".

Ms James appears to be preparing for possibly taking the famous tower if Mr Trump does not pay the penalty. She has filed the judgement with New York's government, the first legal step toward seizing assets.

Vaunted as "one of the most prestigious private estates" by the Trump Organization, the verdant 212-acre estate stretches across the towns of Bedford, Armonk and Chappaqua in New York's Westchester Country. It was built in 1919 by former Washington Post publisher Eugene Meyer and bought by the Trump Organization in 1996.

A large Georgian-style mansion surrounded by nature preserves, the property is atypical of Mr Trump's holdings, which tend to sparkle and shine with gold-plated décor.

As is the case with the other properties in the lawsuit, the Trumps were found to have overinflated its value.

Ms James has also filed the judgement with the Westchester County clerk's office.

Originally completed in 1930, the 72-story neo-Gothic tower in the heart of New York's financial district was purchased by a Trump-controlled company in 1995. The building's website proudly boasts that the purchase was "one of the great real estate deals of all time".

Since the purchase, the building's tenants have included global giants such as American Express, defunct investment bank Bear Stearns and Hilton Hotels & Resorts.

In the New York lawsuit, prosecutors alleged that the values given by Mr Trump and the Trump Organization "far exceeded the values determined by professionals" in lender-ordered appraisals.

In 2012, for example, the property was valued by the company at $572m in financial statements - more than twice the value reached by the outside appraisals.

By last year, the building had been added to a lender watchlist because of concerns over rising expenses and vacancies, according to Bloomberg.

Asset seizures could potentially extend beyond New York's borders to properties controlled by New York based limited liability companies, or LLCs.

That includes Mr Trump's famous 17-acre Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, where he currently resides.

In his ruling, Judge Engoron determined that Mr Trump inflated the value of Mar-a-Lago by as much as 2,300%.

The ruling cited an appraisal from the Palm Beach County Assessor's office, which placed the property's value at between $18m and $27.6m.

Mr Trump has blasted that value repeatedly, and on X, formerly known as Twitter, his son Eric Trump speculated that Mar-a-Lago is worth a billion dollars, "making it arguably the most valuable residential property in the country".

Donald Trump Jr has also mocked the assessment writing: "If Mar-a-Lago is worth $18 million... I'll take 10 please!!"